What do you do with your food when there is a prolonged blackout

I would open the frig once and take out 3-4 days of food and same for the freezer.  Pack the stuff in coolers, run down the hill for bags of ice and never open the fridge of freezer again till the power comes back on.

If over 3 days then probably empty the freezer and pack in ice and take what is left in the fridge and do the same. However anyone who is here and does not have a back up system may be SOL.

In Colorado we lost our electric for 7 days during a huge snow storm.  We knew it was going to be days before we got it back as it would be days before any of the roads were cleared (we had 7.5 feet of snow in that one storm).  So we emptied the fridge and freezer and packed it all in coolers then packed in ice and buried the coolers in the snow.  We did not have one thing spoil on us.

Bob K

If the  freezer is relatively full it can go almost  2 days with no issue.  Fridge can go about 30 hours with no issue.  Food on the door goes bad first, get rid of it.

After hurricane Hugo in 1989,  power was gone for up to 3 MONTHS in most areas. We had to buy very expensive generators for ie.  3000 watt was $3,000.    with 85 % of all buildings destroyed, shelter was a huge problem .   Blue tarps covered the island.  After a week, the feds sent the national guard to protect us.  They brought tons of MRE's to help feed the people.  People gathered together, pooled their money To buy generators.  Whomever had the least damaged place packed as many as could fit.  I had 11 pe0ple staying in my studio apartment. None of the banks opened for a couple of weeks so no money but what was in your pockets. The large food distributors had back up power.   Some of them gave free food away.  The very slow federal response was due to the big California earthquake which got all the attention.    Hugo taught me to never be without back up power.    Fill all empty space in freezers & fridges with bottles filled 3/4 with water.  Helps to keep things cold as well as providing clean drinking water.     Be calm,  rain is on the way.  Doth spake the Tinker.

This was in Florida...right?

Bob K

Amazing guys. Thank you all for these great advices!

we generally do not have much food. its eaten pretty fast.so if real trouble hits we will be looking for people that have large freezers

I suggest stocking up on some canned meats such as corned beef or tuna more so than fresh meat just in case power goes out for a long time. In old days, folks relied on can goods to get them through such rough patches it seems like all the suggestions mentioned here are sound in nature, stock less fresh and more canned, then you will not have to worry so much.

No bob.  It was the island of St. Croix, U S V I .   400 hundred miles east of the DR & 110 miles east of PR.  The St Croix Yacht Club had 129 boats...... one survived heavily damaged.  My girlfriend at the time was the Commodore,  she lost both of her boats.   There is a lot on the web about this.   It was Hurricane Andrew that hit south Florida  a couple of years later.